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Commentary: U.S. kids need computer-science education

Estonia is a small country in the Baltic region with a population of 1.3 million. It's probably best known in the tech world as the home of the engineers that developed Skype, but it's soon to be known for far

Commentary: U.S. kids need computer-science education

EDITOR'S NOTE: With progress being made on bipartisan immigration law, the importance of computer-science education has resurfaced, underscoring the need for more graduates in the USA. In this guest column, Stanford University lecturer Elizabeth Stark weighs in on the topic.

Estonia is a small country in the Baltic region with a population of 1.3 million. It's probably best known in the tech world as the home of the engineers that developed Skype, but it's soon to be known for far more than that.

Why? Because Estonia recently announced that it is teaching all first graders how to code, and one of the best ways to seed innovation is to spread computer-science education.

The future of the U.S. economy depends upon technological progress, and learning basic skills like computational thinking and programming are great ways to expose students at an early age to its importance. If the U.S. doesn't follow suit, we will lose out in the global economy.

By 2018, there will be nearly three times as many job openings requiring computer science knowledge than qualified applicants. This goes well beyond just becoming a professional programmer -- learning computer science can teach problem solving skills, new ways of breaking down complex scenarios, and a means to build something tangible in our software-driven age.

Equipped with this mindset, Ben Gleitzman, an MIT alum with a computer science (CS) degree, started a program to teach high school kids several years ago. When pitching it to a principal at a top New York City school, he was informed "our students need to be learning Latin, not computer science." Sure, Latin has its uses, but to bluntly say students should not be given the opportunity to learn computer science is irresponsible and short-sighted. And this was not an isolated incident -- he repeatedly received pushback from school administrators on teaching CS.

We have not prioritized computer science education in our schools. Less than 5% of U.S. high schools offer AP CS, down more than 35% in the last few years. But there are glimmers of hope. Enrollments in introductory CS courses at universities like Harvard and Stanford are at all-time highs. There are a whole host of new online resources, from EdX to Khan Academy to CodeHS, that seek to expose learners to coding and computational thinking.

The earlier in life that people start, the better -- something Estonia fully understands. Luckily, smart entrepreneurs are paving the path in the U.S. A program called CodeEd teaches low income girls to program starting in middle school, and CodeHS has launched a crowdfunding campaign to get CS into high schools. But even these may be too late --the ideal scenario, says Jenny Ye, a CS student at Harvard who teaches with CodeEd, is for kids to learn how to code when they learn how to read.

We're at a crossroads as a nation. It's inevitable that computation and software will surround us moving forward, and we have a choice between two futures. Future A is one in which everyone has basic code literacy and is empowered to build the future. Future B is one in which only an elite few know how to interact with the system, and the rest remain powerless.

Which one do you choose?

Elizabeth Stark has taught technology and the Internet at Stanford University and Yale University. She was one of the key organizers in the anti-SOPA movement that engaged 18 million people worldwide.